The following is an excerpt from a speech I gave at the ROHS National Honor Society induction ceremony. A hunter has been wandering through the woods, lost, thirsty, and desperate. Finally, we wanders into a small camp. “Thank goodness!” he cries,...

I’ve been wondering what I would write of Galveston five months after Hurricane Ike. Even now, thousands are without homes, many still without water, and electricity is just now starting to be restored on Bolivar peninsula. And so we took 64 students to help:...

“I haven’t received any call back from you.” I didn’t know whose voice it was on my cell phone. All I knew was that she was an older woman staying in Florida and that she had called me at some point while I was teaching a Haruki Murakami novel...

Over the last week or so I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to write of New Orleans. Thirty months following the storm, over 4000 homes are still untouched. FEMA trailers are toxic. The media has all but quit talking about it. Brad Pitt builds a few show homes...